Working the Night Shift

This past summer I had a job that at the time I did not know would end up having as large of an impact on me as it did.  The biggest way to show how the large of an impact this job had on me is by simply looking at the fact that it has been a year of me trying to figure out what to say in a blog to do this job the justice it deserves.  I am writing this post to attempt to show how great of a time I had and also how much I grew and obtained new skills.

This past summer I was hired at Drew’s Assisted Living as the full-time third shift RP (RP literally stands for Responsible Person, lol).  As RP it was my job to be in charge of the Resident Aids (RAs) that were working, pass medication, chart on the residents, and also help with the assisting of residents.  On third shift I had only one RA on shift with me at a time, so I had the opportunity to really get to know the coworkers I would work with, and I also really got to be hands on with the residents.  Drew’s has multiple locations, but the location I was working at had up to 20 residents at a time.

I started the job with the mindset that I would probably gain a lot of insight what it would be like to work in a job with primary care, but left with not only that, but also a whole summer’s worth of amazing memories and people skills.  Each and every one of my resident’s taught me something amazing about life.  One of my most memorable residents that holds an extra special place in my heart was someone who lived the type of life I would love to be able to say I lived once I have reached her age.  She grew up very independent and focused on loving her friends and family wholeheartedly.  She was the first resident I was able to assist at Drew’s, and I was on shift the night she passed.  I know that for years to come I will remember the type of love and kindness I got to not only witness but experience from this resident.

Most people think that working third shift would be extremely relaxed and chill because the residents would all be sleeping right? ha wrong.  But of those nights where residents wanted to do anything but sleep I made some of the best memories.  One resident in particular that just really preferred to sleep during the day and I would spend the nights singing and dancing around in the living room, listening to the stories of each others lives, and laughing at the goofy stories she would tell about her husband and kids.  This resident in particular cried my last night when I told her that I was leaving at the end of the summer to go back to school, and I never would have guessed that I would be making such great connections and impacts on a resident.

Another resident that is important to mention is a resident who was extremely misunderstood.  This resident was not very vocal, and they would get extremely scared and violent when a worker would be assisting her.  A lot of workers would get very negative about working with this resident, and try and get other people to help her, but I had a very strong connection with this resident that I never knew how to explain.  I would just try and be the kindest person I could be to let her know that I was just trying to help.  I would let her move as slow as she needed, and I would constantly talk to her.  I also learned that she LOVED music, so if everything else was failing and she was getting violent, I would offer to go sit and listen to music while we worked on getting her dressed.  Anything to bridge the gap between a worker and resident to make it more of a friend helping a friend worked wonders in gaining her trust.

I have had many more experiences and residents that touched my heart, but one important and sad thing I want to note is that now, a year late, quite a few of these residents have passed away.  Passing is a very natural part of life, and this experience taught my first hand how to deal with it in a way where I can still be a person of support for others while still processing a loss myself.  I am happy I was able to have an impact and part in these people’s lives and help put a smile on their face towards their last days.

Another thing I would like to note about this job is that I got real life experience in responding to emergencies.  I have had lots of training and classes that taught me cpr, first aid, how to respond to an emergency, etc. but throughout the summer I gained experience in dealing with calling an ambulance due to an injury, providing care to a resident who was having a breakdown due to mental health, providing comfort care to a resident who was actively passing, and many more.  I became extremely comfortable in my ability to respond to an emergency and provide life saving care.

Overall, I loved my job with all of my heart and look very forward to returning to work in the end of the summer.  I had never been so sure of my choice to enter into the health field as I was after my job at Drew’s Assisted Living.  I can’t wait for the more opportunities to impact other’s lives and make connections in the future and to eventually become Dr. Varney.

The Saddest Cancelled Trip in History (not to be dramatic)

Last year I had to the privilege of going on the LAS in the D trip with my freshman cohort.  As members of LAS we serve on a LEAD team, and I was super excited when I found out I would be returning to Detroit as a member of the LAS in the D lead team.  As a facilitator of the Detroit Service Trip I would get the responsibility of being paired with another member of the LEAD team to help facilitate a group of freshman.

Through planning this trip, the LEAD team was getting really excited because we were working with our three LEAD team co-chairs to help them make the trip the best and most service and education oriented trip yet.  We had a chance to meet with the freshman who were going to be in our groups for the week to do pre-trip reflections to get their minds in the right mindset to learn and help foster change. Things were looking great, and we were ready to go.

But, weather in Michigan does not always let us get what we want.  The Thursday before the trip we found out the Detroit Service Trip had to be cancelled due to weather.  This was extremely shocking and disappointing. I was not only sad that I would not get to experience and grow from this trip, but I was also sad that there was a cohort of freshman who would not get to have the eye-opening experience that I had the year before.

Out of this happening I learned mostly that there are things out of our control.  I had my time to be bummed, but there are ways to learn outside of going on this service trip that I should embrace.  Others may not have been able to go on the exact trip I did as a freshman, but in that in no way means I cannot encourage others to take initiative and try to educate themselves.  I hope next year I get the opportunity to serve on the Detroit Service Trip LEAD team, so I can help make the difference I want.

My First Step to Becoming the President

Part of our protocol for LAS is taking Introduction to Debate together as a cohort.  We learn the different ways of argumentation and are then asked to debate about topics that assigned to us with groups that we are assigned at the beginning of the semester.  At first I wasn’t too excited about this class because I didn’t know what to expect because I had never formally debated before.  However, I ended up enjoying the debating aspect of the class.

The first two debates we were not allowed to pick our topics.  My group was assigned the topics “All welfare recipients should be drug tested” and “All schools should be single sex schools.”  However, the last debate we were allowed to choose our debate topic.  My group chose the topic “Religion should be taught in schools.”  The last debate was my favorite because I thought it was the most interesting.

This class really helped develop my leadership because it allowed me to learn how to have a productive conversation about an issue even when I disagree with others.  I think this is an important skill to have as not only a leader, but as a person.  I also loved this class because the majority of the class would all go get lunch together afterwards, so it gave us a really great chance to bond!